Let's face it. Wireless, Internet and TV have become commodities. There's not a lot of differentiation between the products in these markets so more and more it comes down to price. I retired recently and am on a fixed income and have to watch those pennies. But with so many in the working world living paycheck to paycheck it's not much different. I tend to be loyal but had to take an honest look at what I was paying and what I was getting and after doing so realized I had to make some changes. Case in point:
Wireless - got unlimited over 55 plan from T-Mobile that works fine and is almost half of what I was paying with AT&T WHEN I had my discount. Just finished a long vacation trip and service was great. Same service for half the price.
Internet - only have copper in my neighborhood and got a whopping 24Mb/s max from AT&T. Switched to Suddenlink and get 200Mb/s for less than I was paying for AT&T. 8 times the speed for a cheaper price. Service has been very stable.
TV - after going thru the gamut with AT&T over the years with Dish, U-Verse, DirecTV switched to streaming using Apple TV and YouTubeTV for less and more selection and it's been rock solid. Could make the same case for HULU TV too.
This is an AT&T Layoff site so what does this have to do with that? Simple, if you are losing market share in these areas versus growing the business with value and innovation you need less people. I don't like to see it happen but seems to have been spiraling down for awhile now. AT&T seems to suffer from 3 things these days. 1 - Continually being late to the party with "new" products in existing markets. 2- Resting on their laurels from way back when they were the only game in town - they're not anymore and having been in quite awhile. 3 - Having an overinflated view of their brand in the marketplace when more and more of us are concerned about price versus brand. We're become the SONY or CURTIS MATHIS equivalents of the telecom world. I'm not happy about it but it seems to be the current reality.